I won’t ever tell S about him. She doesn’t need to know anything. She has asked me about her father once or twice, but she’s so little and it’s easy just to distract her. Obviously, I shan’t get away with that forever, though. One day she will want something more.

This had been the first comment she had come across about Scarlet’s father, and Pip had scoured the entry for any clues as to his identity, but there weren’t any. She assumed it was just the usual old story – boy meets girl, girl gets into trouble, boy runs for the hills, and Evelyn clearly didn’t want him to have any part in Scarlet’s life, despite how hard her own life appeared to be as a result. Evelyn was very bitter, though, which didn’t seem to square with that story. Pip couldn’t really work it out.

Her sister Joan continued to be hellish to her as well, and Pip often found herself seething with outrage and indignation at the way she treated Evelyn. She seemed to be little more than a skivvy in the house and Joan had her doing all the domestic tasks as if she were her maid and not her sister. It reminded Pip of Cinderella and her ugly stepsisters, but Evelyn seemed to accept her treatment, a few waspish diary entries aside.

Pip felt forced to draw comparisons between Evelyn’s situation and the way her own mother sometimes asked, very nicely, if she could perform a particular task for her, only for Pip to fail to do it. The thought made Pip ashamed and her insides squirmed at the contrast between her own behaviour and Evelyn’s. She would try harder, she decided as she read on. Her life was challenging and she was finding it hard to cope, but that was no excuse for snapping at her poor mother or stropping around the farm like a teenager.

Pip turned to leave, but as she did so she looked up at the house one more time. A pale face appeared in the lit window. It was hard to make out any details through the dirt, but it looked like a woman, white hair caught up in a bun on top of her head. Even though Pip couldn’t see her features clearly, it felt as if their eyes locked, just for a moment, and Pip found that she couldn’t pull her gaze away.

Was it Evelyn?

For a wild moment, it crossed Pip’s mind that the other woman knew she had read her diary, was party to her innermost thoughts, but of course that was ridiculous. How could she possibly know?

And yet, as the two women stared at each other across the street, it felt to Pip as if there were some connection that she couldn’t quite fathom.